AFFAIRS AT ATHENS
It is rather surprising that when Agis—encouraged by the great distance which separated Alexander from Europe, by perhaps exaggerated rumours of the dangers that threatened him in Asia, and by the disasters which had befallen the Macedonian arms at home—ventured on his ill-fated struggle Athens remained neutral. It was afterward made a ground of accusation against Demosthenes, that he had taken no advantage of this occasion to display the hostility which he always professed towards Alexander. The event proves that he took the most prudent course; but his motives must remain doubtful. He was perhaps restrained, not by his opinion of the hopelessness of the attempt, but by the disposition to peace, which he found prevailing at home, whether the effect of fear or of jealousy, or of any other cause. Had the people been ready to embark in the contest, an orator probably would not have been wanting to animate them to it. But Demosthenes may still have given secret encouragement and assistance to the Peloponnesian confederates, and may have alluded to this, when, according to his adversary’s report, he boasted that the league was his work. The issue of that struggle, and the news which arrived soon after, of the great victory by which Alexander had decided the fate of the Persian monarchy at Gaugamela [Arbela], must have crushed all hope at Athens, except one, which might have been suggested by domestic experience, that the conqueror’s boundless ambition might still lead him into some enterprise beyond his strength.